пятница, 15 марта 2019 г.

Clouzot: The Early Works: The Terror of Batignolles / La terreur des Batignolles (1931), Dragnet Night / Un soir de rafle (1931), The Unknown Singer / Le chanteur inconnu (1931), I’ll Be Alone After Midnight / Je serai seule apres minuit (1931), My Cousin from Warsaw / Ma cousine de Varsovie (1931), Tell Me Tonight / La chanson d’une nuit (1932), Dream Castle / Chateau de reve (1933) 2 x Blu-Ray Kino Lorber

Clouzot The Early Works
Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages of Fear, Diabolique) is considered one of the masters of French cinema. The filmmaker has a master's eye for visual storytelling. His most cherished works clearly demonstrate Clouzot's artistic brushstrokes as a director are uniquely his own. With several classic films made during his legacy as a director he is an artist who has undeniably made a mark in the pantheon of filmmaking history.

Clouzot: The Early Works is an interesting compilation of some of the filmmaker's earliest forays into filmmaking. This set showcases his beginnings as a filmmaker when he worked as a screenwriter for dialogue adaptations and as an assistant director. It also includes his directorial debut, The Terror of Batignolles (1931), a short film that only hints at what was to come from Clouzot.

As with other master filmmakers who started their prolific careers during the early era of studio filmmaking (such as the brilliant Alfred Hitchcock), Clouzot's earliest filmmaking demonstrate his finesse for the art and craft while only giving a glimpse of his later brilliance. Before making classics like The Wages of Fear he had to learn the ropes of filmmaking. This set showcases his growth from a novice to a skilled filmmaking who would one day become an auteur.

Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

четверг, 14 марта 2019 г.

John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) 2 x Blu-Ray Shout! Factory – Scream Factory Collector’s Edition, Blu-Ray Arrow Films Limited Edition

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) 2 x Blu-Ray Shout! Factory - Scream Factory Collector's Edition
A Norwegian helicopter circles the perimeter of United States National Science Institute, station 4, a remote scientific outpost deep in the Arctic. For reasons unknown, a gunman inside the chopper fires a rifle at a dog. The engagement ends with the copter down and the two-man crew killed. The confused American research team takes in the seemingly harmless dog, and several of the group, including R.J. "Mac" MacReady (Kurt Russell), take their own helicopter to the Norwegian outpost in hopes of discovering what drove the Norwegians to hunt the dog in such an aggressive manner that ultimately cost them their lives. There, amidst the smoldering remains of the station, they find the remnants of some "thing." Taking it back to station 4, the facility's medical examiner finds inside of it normal human organs, but the "thing's" external appearance is anything but, a bloody jumble of limbs, torsos, and faces melded together as one. Soon after, the team discovers a deadly creature in their midst, one that can absorb and imitate any life form it so chooses, leaving the team confused, frightened, and untrusting of one another. A series of bloody events reveals that appearances can be deceiving, that your best friend may very well be harboring inside of him a deadly creature capable of unleashing unspeakable, grotesque attacks.

Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

среда, 13 марта 2019 г.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Rosemary's Baby 1968 Criterion Collection
Roman Polanski's (Carnage; The Pianist; Chinatown) 1968 Hollywood debut Rosemary's Baby introduced the already established European director of such psychological dramas as Repulsion to an American market with a similar journey through a woman's madness. This time around, however, the journey would take on more supernatural leanings, and Rosemary's Baby, based on the novel by Ira Levin, would also lead the way for the horror/thrillers of the 1970s such as The Exorcist and The Omen.

Starring a waifish Mia Farrow straight from her Peyton Place role in the titular role as Rosemary, the film follows the Woodhouses, Guy (John Cassavetes; A Woman Under the Influence) and Rosemary as they move into a new apartment in Manhattan, the historic building carrying a long history of gruesome deaths. Their nosy elderly neighbors inveigle their way into the Woodhouse's lives. When Rosemary becomes pregnant – the implication being that Rosemary has been raped by the devil himself as we see in an earlier nightmare sequence – Rosemary becomes increasingly suspicious about her neighbors, her doctor, and even her husband, suspecting they want to steal her baby and use it for satanic rituals.

What makes Rosemary's Baby so effective, however, is the fact that the film's focus is rarely on anything supernatural. As a viewer we are forced to question right up to the very end whether Farrow's character Rosemary is truly being targeted by supernatural forces, or if she is just a woman knocked of center by her new circumstances and in the midst of a breakdown. Polanski, already a master at such topics by this time, builds the tension masterfully through his use of the camera, the eerie jazz-inspired score from Krzysztof Komeda, and a breakout performance from Farrow herself.
Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

понедельник, 11 марта 2019 г.

Samuel Fuller’s Forty Guns (1957) DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Forty Guns 1957
Forty Guns stars the great Barbara Stanwyck as Jessica Drummond, a wealthy landowner in Arizona. She's a powerful woman who has control over the 'forty guns' of the title, a band of riders who help her maintain her dominant position over the area alongside her ability to pay off anyone she needs. When ex-hired gun Griff Bonnell (Barry Sullivan) and his two brothers ride into town and put a stop to her brother Brockie's (John Ericson) drunken bullying, Jessica begins to lose her tight grip. This isn't helped by the fact that she falls in love with Griff. Brockie isn't about to let the Bonnells get away with what they did though and Jessica becomes torn between both sides whilst Griff's life is put in danger.

A remarkable, typically eccentric film produced, written, and directed by the irreplaceable Samuel Fuller, Forty Guns is quite unlike any Western made before or since. It's floridly melodramatic in the Douglas Sirk manner and, for its time, was explicitly violent with outrageous sexual innuendo.
Like many other Fuller films, Forty Guns influenced the director's younger European counterparts.

Director: Samuel Fuller
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger
Country: USA
Genre: Romance, Western
Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

суббота, 9 марта 2019 г.

Red, White and Zero (The White Bus, Ride of the Valkyrie, Red and Blue) (1967) Blu-Ray BFI

Red, White and Zero 1967
This film is made up of three separate stories which somehow represent a way of seeing an aspect of life in the Britain of the mid-nineteen-sixties. It starts with Ride of the Valkyrie, where opera singer Zero Mostel must take a perilous journey from the airport where he has just arrived to the theatre where he is meant to be appearing in Wagner's Ring. Second is The White Bus, where a young woman (Patricia Healey) leaves her deadly boring job in London to return north to her hometown, but finds things both the same and different. Third is Red and Blue, as chanteuse Vanessa Redgrave reflects while on a train journey back to her lovers, some more significant than others...

Unfortunately the three segments were quickly separated before the film could be given a theatrical release, with only Anderson's middle segment, the superb "The White Bus," getting a significant commercial release. Fortunately the BFI has corrected that oversight by restoring the entire film as originally intended, and it's a fascinating, sometimes surprising experience that also fills a significant hole in the history of British cinema.

Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

пятница, 8 марта 2019 г.

Valley of the Dolls (1967) 2 x DVD9 and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection


Cutthroat careerism, wild sex, and fierce female protagonists are all on offer in this adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's sensational and wildly popular novel.
Neely is a talented Broadway performer, but her talent frightens jealous and aging star Helen Lawson (Susan Hayward), so she has her removed from her show. However, she won't be stopped, and strives toward stardom on her own path and becomes a monster in her own right. Jennifer is a beauty, but that's all anyone ever sees in her, while her mother uses her as a piggy bank and breaks her confidence at every chance. Anne is fresh from idyllic New England, and finds herself in the big city, thrown into the whirlwind that is the entertainment industry.
The three will soon realize that life is not all about glamor, though, as they discover the hidden part of fame; drugs, booze, and sex with men who will never love them. Each of them is affected by this discovery in different ways and follow downward spirals that leave them estranged.

Director: Mark Robson
Cast: Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Paul Burke, Sharon Tate
Country: USA
Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws

суббота, 2 марта 2019 г.

Gmar Gavi’a / Cup Final (1991) DVD5

Cup Final 1991
During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, an Israeli soldier is captured by a band of PLO guerrillas. Meanwhile, the World Cup finals are happening in Spain, prompting the soldier and several of his captors — particularly the leader of this small group — to bond over their mutual support of Italy.

Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis directs this lyrical anti-war film that covers Israel invasion of Lebanon. It uses soccer as a bridge between enemy soldiers that can possibly bring them to recognize they might also have other things in common. Laced with humor, wit and violence, Cup Final is a subtle tale of shared humanity.

DVD5 | NTSC 4:3 | 01:47:51 | 4.18 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Hebrew
Subtitles: English hardcoded
Genre: Drama, War

Director: Eran Riklis
Cast: Moshe Ivgy, Mohammad Bakri, Salim Dau
Country: Israel
Читать дальше...

Read more / Download movie Originally published at MovieWorld.ws